1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of assembling conductive terminals of a plurality of electrical connectors and electrical connector module assembled thereby.
2. Description of Related Art
With the development of various electronic products and personal computers and the expansion of peripheral equipment for various electronic products, electronic products have more and more connectors. USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an electronic connector for high speed signal transmission. Since USB has the advantages of hot-swap, convenient carry, unified standard and connecting with different kinds of equipment, USB is widely used for connecting various electronic products with peripheral equipment.
At present, an electronic product generally has a plurality of independent USB connectors or a connector module formed by a plurality of USB connectors together disposed therein. As shown in FIG. 19 and FIG. 20, a common connector module 9 includes at least four overlapping USB connectors 91, 92, 93 and 94, and each USB connector 91, 92, 93 or 94 includes an inserting surface 910, 920, 930 or 940 which has a row of parallel terminal holes 911, 921, 931 or 941 formed therein. That is, the connector module 9 has four rows of terminal holes 911, 921, 931, 941 overlapping from up to down, and there is no misalignment or little misalignment in each row of terminal holes 911, 921, 931 and 941 in the vertical direction. So it correspondingly needs four conductive terminal groups 912, 922, 932 and 942 which have a similar structure and are arranged from up to down, and there is no misalignment or little misalignment between corresponding conductive terminals of the conductive terminal groups 912, 922, 932 and 942, which are arranged from up to down.
Generally speaking, only one conductive terminal is connected with the same terminal carrier structure 901, 902, 903 or 904 and located in the same vertical direction with the terminal carrier structure 901, 902, 903 or 904, so the conductive terminals of each group with no misalignment or little misalignment in the vertical direction need to be respectively formed on four different terminal carrier structures 901, 902, 903 and 904, which causes that the production procedure of the terminals becomes complex. Furthermore, because different conductive terminal groups 912, 922, 932 and 942 have different bent height, so the conductive terminals of different groups have different length. Accordingly, the conductive terminals of each group are formed by stamping metal sheets with different width. After the terminal carrier structures 901, 902, 903 and 904 are formed, the metal between the conductive terminals is removed as waste material. Since the center distance (2.0 mm-2.5 mm) between two adjacent conductive terminals of each conductive terminal group is far greater than the width (about 1.0 mm) of each conductive terminal (please refer to FIG. 16 simultaneously), more waste material (the width of about 1.0 mm-1.5 mm) is produced between each two adjacent conductive terminals, which reduces the utilization rate of the terminal carrier structures 901, 902, 903 and 904, brings a great waste of material and increases manufacturing cost.
Additionally, during assembly, one terminal carrier structure 901, 902, 903 or 904 generally corresponds to one assembling step, so two terminal carrier structures need to be assembled in two assembling steps, that is, the conductive terminals of the four conductive terminal groups need to be mounted on an insulating body in four times and then respectively riveted and fixed, thereby the manufacturing and assembling steps are increased, which reduces the assembly efficiency of the conductive terminals and the insulating body and restricts manufacturing cost.
Hence, there is a need for a new method of assembling conductive terminals of a plurality of electrical connectors and electrical connector module assembled thereby to overcome the shortcomings described above.